On 30 November 2021 Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, will hold its third International Conference on Biometrics for Borders (ICBB 2021).
The aim of this call is to invite the research community to submit short papers related to the thematic focus of the conference, which is biometric interoperability in the context of European Union’s external border management, including interoperability topics related to border security and specific border control technologies.
The accepted papers will be presented in a dedicated research session during the ICBB conference and will be included as part of the final report of the conference. This session will give to the authors from the research community a unique opportunity to have an open dialogue with policy makers, industry, and practitioners in the field.
The research session and selection process in the context of this call is organized by Frontex in collaboration with the Join Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission.
Scope of the conference
Interoperability is an important topic addressed by the Smart Borders Package in two regulations adopted by the European Council on May 20th 2019, proposing frameworks for interoperability between EU information systems in the field of borders and visa[1], and between EU information systems in the field of police and judicial cooperation, asylum, and migration[2]. The objective of these frameworks is to support information sharing leading to a more effective collaboration, security improvements in multiple identity detection, and efficient access to information stored in multiple systems and databases.
The ICBB 2021 will tackle interoperability from an operational and user experience perspective, also considering a future vision of biometrics and artificial intelligence due to large-scale interoperability and data sharing across international borders. Researchers, law enforcement authorities and industry are already actively engaged in research aimed at supporting and leveraging on large-scale interoperability to enable advanced border management applications.
The conference goes beyond a traditional scientific conference since it provides a dialogue platform bringing together border management, law enforcement, policy makers and research communities. This approach ensures that the needs and requirements from operational activities are well communicated and appropriately addressed enabling effective applied research and innovation.
To support the mapping of the various research efforts and latest developments, the following key objectives have been identified:
- Discuss the current situation and existing biometric interoperability standards observing gaps in technology in contrast to operational requirements and future research directions.
- Identify operational impacts of biometric interoperability and ongoing (research) activities related to this topic that have the potential to improve scalability and effectiveness of processes when large-scale interoperability becomes a reality.
- Present future vision and applications of interoperability to support advance border management applications including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and including possible impacts on ethics and fundamental rights.
The conference will target innovative research and developments in this area; thus, we invite researchers and technology providers to submit short papers describing innovations and future concepts in the field of biometric interoperability.
The conference will take place in Warsaw, Poland. However, due to health concerns and restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, physical participation will be limited to speakers, panelists, and Member State authorities.
Submissions may include and reference contributions already published in other peer-reviewed publications. However, considering the context and main scope of the ICBB, submissions should present and detail how these original ideas/studies can support the implementation of the technology considering the specific policy context related to biometric interoperability.
Topics of interest
The following list summarizes topics of interest of the conference:
- Biometric interoperability standards including conceptual models, taxonomies, ontologies, field studies and analysis;
- New case studies and applications showing methods and technologies to improve efficient biometric analysis.
- Legal, data protection, and human rights studies analysing the potential impact of large-scale interoperability and how to efficiently address them.
- Future vision on interoperability and biometrics including artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches.
Paper submission
Short papers should not exceed 5 pages (including references), written in English and submitted to biometrics@frontex.europa.eu with subject line “Call for Short Papers”. Please use editable file formats following the provided format and guidelines. These can be downloaded below:
